“There can be only one!”
Highlander (Russel Mulcahy, 1986) follows the mysterious Russell Nash (Christopher Lambert) who live in New York in 1985. When Nash kills a man by decapitating him in a sword fight in an an underground car park, he leaves a piece of his sword lodged in a pillar. Expert forensics expert and sword enthusiast Brenda Wyatt (Roxanne Hart) discovers the piece of metal at the crime scene and upon learning its origin begins to try and uncover the truth behind Nash. She discovers that Nash is really called Connor Macleod and was born in the Scottish Highlands in the early 16th Century. He isone of a group of immortals existing since the beginning of time who must fight and kill each other through the ages until the time of the Gathering, when the few of them who are left out fight till there is only one, to claim ‘The Prize’.
This is one of my favourite movies and I love how the film switches between the present with Nash/Macleod’s struggles after being arrested for the murder, and his experiences in the past over the 400 odd years he’s been alive; it starts in 1518 in the Scottish Highlands and goes forward through time through his experiences in 18th Century England and Europe in the Second World War. One of the things that made this movie so revolutionary when it was released was Mulcahy’s way of using transitions between shots. For example, in one transition between the present and past, the camera closes into the fish tank in Nash’s apartment and then moves up, but instead of the surface of the fish tank the camera rises above the surface of a loch in Scotland. In another transition the camera moves up through the ceiling of a car park and rises above a hill, again, in the Scottish Highlands.
Highlander wasn’t a big and popular movie upon release, it grew in popularity over time and built up a bit of a fan base, but with Sean Connery playing a part and also acting as a narrator, multiple really awesome sword fights in various impressive locations, and a soundtrack by Queen, its not surprising.
Jake Carder's AS Media Studies Blog 